"Fairs, too, and markets, are never beneath your notice; not that I would advise you to attend indiscriminately such public resorts. There is danger in this; for if, whilst selling, as you would be compelled to do, your goods at a fair market price, some of your muirland customers should observe it, your private and more lucrative trade would be endangered; but, in markets sufficiently remote from your ordinary route, no such consequences are to be apprehended, and there you may occasionally get rid of some old and rather unsaleable stock. "One of the most important secrets of the trade is, the recovery of bad debts; for, however delighted your customers may be with their fine new fashionable articles when they are purchased, the day of payment is always an unwelcome day. "So comes the reckoning, when the banquet's o'er, The awful reckoning, and men smile no more." "Servants, too, frequently change their service, and you will often have great difficulty in tracing them out. In every instance, almost, some particular procedure must be resorted to. In one case, you may succeed by threats, and by pretending to read a warrant of apprehension; in another, a little flattery may not be amiss, particularly with the fair sex. 'It is, indeed, a pity that the price is not forthcoming: for you never saw _her_ look so handsome as she did in the still unpaid article. Could she only manage the one-half now, you would take her acknowledgment for the other half, next time you came about,' &c. &c. In desperate cases, desperate measures must be resorted to. For example," continued my knowing instructor, "I'll tell you how I once recovered thirty shillings, which I had fully given up as lost.